It is with a disturbed and saddened heart that I witness this rise in mainstreaming of bigotry in our country. Somehow, it became okay to believe that white people, the most privileged and entitled group on pretty much the entire planet, are somehow in harm’s way and are therefore justified in pushing an agenda of purity and violence. Really? Really?

I am not unfamiliar with racism. I grew up with it. It still exists all around me. It crops up in old tasteless jokes, usually about Native Americans or minorities. After Obama became president, the awful monkey poster made the rounds. I still hear grumbling in local small town parades as royalty becomes more diversified. And I see it in the wide births that I sometimes witness in the local grocery stores when groups of newly settled immigrants are doing their shopping, often speaking a language to each other that is not English.

Presiden Trump is not the reason for this reappearance of an old ignorance, but his refusal to admit the alt rights’ irrelevance in a modern America only emboldens those who can’t accept that our country has no room for their hate any longer.

This condoning behavior from our commander and chief has sparked a resurgence in white power rallies that only promise misery and pain to those of us who must tolerate their First Amendment right to exist and assemble in public places.

So what should we do? If counter protesting only spurns them on, then what is the solution?

There are many of those who will vehemently disagree with me, but I suggest we do…nothing. Don’t counter protest. Don’t show up at the rally if you are not a cop and obligated to be there. Don’t pay any attention to them whatsoever. Let them have their right to speak, to chant, to act like big bullies with their ridiculous symbols and pretend they are important, but let their audience be no one. They want the attention. They crave the validation. Don’t give them the satisfaction that they matter.

They’ll have to look for that surge of adrenaline elsewhere, probably by doing something illegal. Then the authorities can arrest them and they’ll go back to being recognized for the thugs they truly are, lacking any of the faux legitimacy they think they somehow gained in January. Give them nothing.